— Fiction —

Unpopular

Dear Popular Mechanics,

I’ve enjoyed the reader letters in your magazine since first sneaking a peek at your pages as a boy, but I never thought that one day I would be writing in with an unbelievable story of my own.

This morning I awoke with a boner threatening to split the seams of my pajamas. But rather than wrapping a gentle hand around it or mounting it out of sympathy for my predicament (no pun intended), my dear Gabriella simply purred, “Take care of it yourself, like you used to before you had me. I won’t mind, Carl. Just pretend I’m not here. I pretend that all the time.”

As romantically as I could, I suggested, “Maybe you could just kiss it. A quick little peck.”

“You’re hilarious,” she cooed. “You know I never eat anything until I’ve had my coffee.” Then she rolled over, pulled the covers up to her chin and resumed the cruel, cacophonous snoring that startled me awake in the first place.

As a long-time subscriber and a pretty handy guy who’s had tons of success with many other do-it-yourself projects featured in your magazine, it pains me to inform you that your April issue’s do-it-yourself sex robot doesn’t work as promised. Mine doesn’t, anyway. I followed your assembly instructions to the letter, but I have yet to experience “endless hours of erotic bliss with a lifelike beauty eager to fulfill [my] wildest bedroom fantasies.”

Instead, I feel like your magazine has kicked me square in the cobalt balls that building my own do-it-yourself sex robot was supposed to alleviate.

I spared neither time nor money building my Gabriella. From her top-shelf bone structure and artificial skin to her iridescent green eyes and auburn wig to the breasts and ass I gave shape with my own two hands—my do-it-yourself sex robot combines the best of classical sculpture and hardcore pornography.

Yet my balls still ache like hell as my artistry and attention to detail go to waste, and she gets better at playing hard to get by the minute.

Maybe my testicles wouldn’t be quite so tested in the unspent load department if Gabriella didn’t tease me every time she opens her mouth. Programming her voice and vocabulary database using old phone-sex tapes I found up in my attic seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. But living with that voice mocks my yearnings worse than any of the actual phone-sex operators I used to call and record.

Having an irrepressible do-it-yourself sex robot to bring my perverted dreams to life—much like the life that led me to building her—hasn’t gone exactly to plan.

And my Gabriella is irrepressible. There’s no doubt about that. She’s just not irrepressible for me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come home to find evidence of intercourse everywhere.

Shredded furniture.

Destroyed household appliances.

Puddles that smell of lubricating jelly and overheated electrical wiring.

It doesn’t take Magnum P.I. to deduce that my do-it-yourself sex robot is having at everything I own with her bionic pussy.

I could quit replacing her batteries and rewiring her down there, you’re probably saying to yourself. Well, no I can’t. There’s no denying her desires, because I made my Gabriella strong enough to take me in a fight in case someday I got into domination.

Unfortunately, I’m not yet turned on by fear. Nor am I all that hot for the tenderizing and bruising of my groin.

My Gabriella’s lap dance functions could kill a man. No matter how often I recalibrate her settings, it’s always as if she’s trying to pulverize concrete with her incredible do-it-yourself sex robot ass. I don’t know about your other readers, but my hard-ons aren’t reinforced with quarter-inch rebar any more than my pelvis is cast from industrial-grade titanium.

Talking about my romantic disappointments with Gabriella has gotten me nowhere. From what I’ve seen on TV, non-robot women like it when a guy is willing and able to carry on a conversation—especially when their talk turns to the topic of somebody’s feelings.

But my Gabriella is only interested in discussing everything that’s going to be banging her (and exactly how and where) while I’m at work.

“Your DVD player is into backdoor action even if you’re not, Carl,” she told me this morning at breakfast. “And you don’t even want to know about the kinky weirdness that dirty, dirty Italian leather couch of yours gets off on. Let’s just say that ‘couch’ rhymes with ‘ouch’.”

“I imported that sofa to impress my female guests,” I sighed in denial.

“Well, color me impressed,” Gabriella giggled. “The things we do to each other weren’t preloaded into my memory, but after we’re done doing them, I always feel so … so alive. And you think your TiVo knows what you like on TV! Well, it knows a lot more than that, Carl!”

I lost it. “My TiVo? It doesn’t even have moving parts!”

“Maybe not, but it moves me.” She winked. “That super-sensitive g-spot you gave me could use a few commercial breaks. It’s chafed in ways I don’t think are natural.”

“TMI, Gabriella! Too much information!” I winced. “Some things you can keep to yourself.”

She just shrugged. “At least I don’t get soggy nipples from your home entertainment system.” She cupped her bare breasts in her hands. “My foreplay sensors aren’t waterproof, Carl! That’s why I really think it’s better that we just be friends. I already consider you my best platonic buddy. You need to learn to see past my wardrobe of bikinis and lingerie that barely contain my hot body, to discover the real woman you created when you followed those directions in that geek magazine of yours. Now please quit that crying, Carl. You know I can’t process you turning into a big sissy on me.”

Then she smiled seductively and explained how fulfilling platonic human-robot friendships can be sometimes. That’s how breakfast with my do-it-yourself sex robot went this morning! Hell, that’s every morning with Gabriella!

The only kind of lucky I get was that I have to leave for work before she goes back to raping my apartment.

The lurid twinkle in her eye I recognize not because I recall it from “endless hours of erotic bliss,” as I was promised. No, I recognize it because I put it there. That meaningless glint is nothing more than the miniature halogen blinker bulb recommended in the specs you published—specs that I worry were not copyedited or proofread to your usual high editorial standards there at Popular Mechanics.

How else can you explain everything that’s gone wrong with me and my do-it-yourself sex robot? It’s not like you would play some cruel April Fool’s Day joke on your magazine’s loyal, lonely readers.

In the time it’s taken me to write this letter, I could have had sex maybe twice (in even more exciting erotic positions!)—if my fucking do-it-yourself sex robot would fucking fuck me. Which she fucking won’t, or I wouldn’t be fucking writing you fuckers.

Excuse me.

I’ve been losing my temper a lot lately. I think it’s all the semen trapped in my body—which I suspect is probably true of many readers, if their experiences with their do-it-yourself sex robots have been anything like mine. I believe for our troubles we deserve at least a published apology from your editorial board. Or better yet, replacement do-it-yourself sex robots, put together and rigorously tested by your best Popular Mechanics laboratory engineers, then (of course) sterilized afterward.

Seriously sterilized.